


In Case Of Emergency

by entanglednow



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-06
Updated: 2012-12-06
Packaged: 2017-11-20 11:15:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/584800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek falls through Stiles's bedroom window at ten past midnight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Case Of Emergency

Derek falls through Stiles's bedroom window at ten past midnight. Usually he's more graceful than that, but considering he has what looks like a mess of quills embedded in his back, his left arm, and the side of his neck, Stiles is going to give him a pass.

"Oh my God." Stiles drops the textbook he was highlighting, and gets to Derek just before he crashes face-first into the floor, taking his weight with a grunt of effort. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Chasing something I shouldn't have been chasing," Derek says thickly. He tries to straighten up, and groans, because it very obviously hurts to move. Stiles tries to help him to his feet, but he's a mess of sharp spines and bloody skin. It's slow work, and Derek makes unhappy noises every inch of the way.

"What are you doing here, why didn't you go home?" Stiles asks. This kind of shit is what the pack is for, right? Fixing the occasionally - hell, who is he kidding, _regularly_ \- broken Alpha.

"You were closer," Derek snarls. But Stiles doesn't think that's the whole truth, because Derek looks dead on his feet, in a way that suggests that either these things are in deeper than they look, or they're poisoned, or maybe both, and Derek couldn't get any further than this. Which worries the hell out of him. Granted everything worries him now, but this is messier than he remembers things being for a while. The floor's already bloody, and two snapped quills are resting on the carpet, looking way more dangerous than they have any right to.

"Derek?" Stiles isn't sure what to do. Aside from the obvious - only is it obvious? He's never seen anything like this before.

"Get them out," Derek hisses, and Stiles actually bites down on whatever he might have said for once because, ok, yes, that does seem to be the priority right now. He carefully eases Derek facedown on the bed - and he'll have to change the sheets later, before his dad gets home, because Derek is bleeding _everywhere_. His shirt is a lost cause, even before he starts carefully tearing it where it isn't ripped through. Stiles has no idea where his jacket is, and his jeans are ripped up the back of one leg. There's a quill stabbed into the back of Derek's thigh, which Stiles tugs out without thinking, only for Derek's whole body to jerk on a hiss.

"Sorry - Jesus, this thing's sharp. Ok, shit, hang on, I need to -" Stiles moves up the bed to straddle the back of Derek's thighs, because that's the only way this is going to work. But Derek's fingers now end in claws, and Stiles's pillow has become a casualty. "Sorry, sorry, I just need to be over you, and this will be a lot easier. But I get the feeling they're going to hurt worse coming out than going in. They're not poisoned right? I mean you'd tell me if they were poisoned. I don't want to start messing with them if that's going to make it worse."

"No, they're not poisoned, but they are still _inside me_ ," Derek complains through his teeth. "Quit babbling and get them out."

The quills are sunk in deep, and Stiles isn't surprised to discover that some of the longer ones are _barbed,_ horrified and a little nauseous, but not surprised. They tug at the flesh, and tear it when they come free. Derek is holding still for it, but Stiles can tell it hurts because he has his teeth clenched, and when Stiles leans forward to start on the ones in his neck he gives this long hissing snarl. His teeth are suddenly longer, and sharper, and really, dangerously close to Stiles's hand. But Stiles trusts Derek not to bite him on reflex, when he pulls at the second, and the third. He watches the tendons tense, watches the skin tear and bleed onto his sheets. The third one is an inch deep, and the noise Derek makes when he eases it free makes Stiles's skin hurt in sympathy.

"I'm sorry, fuck, I'm sorry. These things are horrible, seriously." Stiles swallows, regrets it when the air tastes like blood. "Sorry," he says again, without thinking about it.

"Stop apologising and get on with it," Derek growls.

Some of them don't want to come, and Stiles has to wrap a hand around the slippery length of the occasional quill to pull, hard, one hand braced on Derek's back, up on his knees for extra leverage. Derek's back is a fucking mess and he's only half done. If Stiles didn't know he could heal it all he wouldn't have even started pulling them out. Derek needs to stop coming to him bleeding like a stuck pig. Because the werewolf version of medical assistance tends to be gruesome and hands-on, in a way that Stiles keeps being called upon to provide, though he's pretty sure he's not very good at it, and he certainly doesn't enjoy it. He has no idea how he manages to do some of this without throwing up everywhere - maybe he'll make up for it later, by having some sort of moment in the bathroom, scrubbing his hands until he feels like a crazy person.

He works as quickly and as carefully as he can, but there's no purchase on the quills, and they start scraping up his hands pretty damn quickly. Several of them are broken close to the skin, and he has to pick at them with his nails, until they come out enough to try and grip. The wetness of Derek's blood is making his fingers tacky and slick. He keeps pulling, going top to bottom, and checking every bare patch of skin for the stiff, foreign sharpness of a dart, in case any had broken off inside him. Though what Stiles thinks he's going to do if he finds one Derek has healed over he has no idea.

"It's done," Stiles says finally, quietly, voice shaky with relief. Back aching from where he's been folded over for what feels like an hour. He has a hand wrapped around the hot curve of Derek's waist, the other still stings, webbing between thumb and first finger bleeding a little. "I'm finished, I think they're all out." He can see that the earlier holes have healed already, but Derek's back is damp with sweat as well as blood, and he's panting, heavy and loud.

There are thirty or forty quills dumped on the floor by Stiles's bed, some of them are just broken darts and jagged edges. He doesn't remember pulling out that many. He feels shaky and exhausted. Stiles leans over him and just breathes for a minute, hand carefully settling on newly healed skin, as if to reassure himself there's nothing still buried in there.

"Is that it? I saw a couple of broken pieces, and I don't know if you've healed over any of them."

"No," Derek says, thick and soft. "No, you got them all."

Stiles is kind of expecting a thank you there, it's the sort of thing normal people do, but he doesn't get one. Derek comes to him expecting him to help, like that's what he's for and thanking him isn't necessary. But he can't even be annoyed, because the plains of wet, broken skin are knitting together sluggishly.

"I should go, it could still be out there," Derek mumbles into Stiles's pillow, but he makes no move to actually get up, and he's still breathing like he's been running, skin paler than Stiles is used to, almost poisoned-by-wolfsbane pale. Stiles doesn't actually know how much Derek can heal himself before it starts to be too much. Before his body just can't any more.

"Give yourself half an hour to heal at least. You must have lost a ton of blood on the way here, most of it's probably still on my windowsill. Thanks for that by the way, I'll enjoy sponging that off at two in the morning, so my dad doesn't think I'm being stalked by a serial killer."

"I don't need your advice," Derek grumbles without looking at him.

Stiles would be more hurt by that, if Derek didn't sound like half an hour was pretty hopeful right now. He has to wonder how long Derek was out there moving, and bleeding, and trying to heal over the quills, especially if he couldn't move very fast. He has to wonder how many Derek managed to pull out himself on the way here.

"Yeah, I get it, I'm not part of your pack, nowhere is safe, everyone is a possible threat, blah, blah, blah. We've been through this before. But at least let me clean you off first. I'll get a towel or something, and you can borrow a shirt, before you fling yourself back into the night, to pretend you're the bastard child of Wolverine and Batman."

Stiles grumbles to himself all the way to the bathroom, mostly about how he needs to stop letting werewolves take advantage of him. He also needs to find a towel that his dad won't miss, because he already knows he's going to ruin it trying to clean up. He wonders if he could sneak some heavy-duty laundry detergent into the house. What do they use for crime-scene clean-up? He'll have to look online. Would it make him look too much like a serial killer if he just bought a ton of the stuff?

He makes his way back to his room, and he braces himself for Derek to already be gone, because he does that, far too often. No thank you, no offers to help clean up, no appreciation.

But Derek's still there, Stiles can see his boots, and the dark line of his leg through the bedroom door.

"Hey, maybe I could get a -" Stiles stops talking, and the towel he's holding goes loose in his hands.

Because Derek is asleep.

His eyes are closed, mouth open just a little, he has one arm pushed up under Stiles's pillow. He looks young and untidy, and completely exhausted.

Derek is asleep on Stiles's bed.

Stiles's isn't even sure how to process that. But suddenly the fact that Derek never says thank you doesn't seem so important. Because this says something Stiles never expected. The fact that Derek trusts him enough to not only come here injured, but to fall asleep in his room, while he's there. Even Stiles knows that's a huge deal. At some point, Derek decided Stiles was safe, that his room was a safe place.

Stiles knows enough to carefully push his bedroom door shut and lock it, to settle himself into his desk chair, facing the bed and the window. He doesn't have Derek's super senses, but if Derek trusts him enough to sleep, then the least Stiles can do is make sure he keeps him safe.

 

 


End file.
